Courses

Interest is growing worldwide in nuclear energy as a low-carbon energy source that could help limit climate change. But nuclear energy is not just another energy source; it can facilitate the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the national prestige that has become attached to nuclear energy programs at times trumps the economics and energy-security arguments that shape energy policy. At the same time, public opinion on nuclear energy remains highly volatile, partly due to concerns about nuclear reactor accidents and long-term radioactive waste disposal. This course will explore current debates about nuclear energy and assess the prospects of the current “nuclear renaissance.” We will briefly review the basic science and technology and current uses of nuclear energy, looking in particular at its economics and arrangements to prevent its use for weapons purposes. We also will analyze various policy proposals to facilitate the safe and rapid global expansion of nuclear energy.

This course explores in-depth several important energy topics that integrate engineering, economics, and policy. It is designed for doctoral students in the natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences that have been exposed to a wide-range of energy topics, perhaps as part of a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT), and are interested in investigating further some of those topics. After reviewing important analytical tools used in engineering, economic and policy evaluations, the course covers the engineering, economics and policy of the electric power grid and global energy integrated energy assessment modeling. Students will engage in computer modeling to understand and explore future global energy and environmental problems.

Concern about climate change is creating the potential for a “renaissance” of nuclear fission power. The international ITER fusion experiment is being built to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion. This course will introduce the science and technology of fission and fusion. We will also cover societal risks, such as nuclear weapons proliferation, and societal benefits, such as reduced CO2 emissions. To make the course more accessible, technical material will be reduced from last year.

Interest is growing worldwide in nuclear energy as a low-carbon energy source that could help limit climate change. In addition to the 30 countries that are already using nuclear power today, more than 60 other countries are currently considering nuclear power. In the United States, where there has not been a new nuclear power plant ordered in three decades, the present and the previous Administrations have been undertaking serious steps to support the construction of new nuclear reactors. At the same time, President Obama and other world leaders have endorsed the vision of a nuclear-weapon-free world, and there are even calls for an agreement to eliminate all nuclear arsenals by 2030.

Nuclear-energy use for peaceful purposes and military purposes are linked, yet, there is virtually a complete disconnect between the nuclear energy and security debates. Enrichment plants that make low-enriched uranium for power-reactor fuel can be converted to produce weapon-usable highly enriched uranium, and spent fuel from reactors contains significant amounts of plutonium, which could be extracted and used for weapons. International safeguards on nuclear facilities and materials are seen as inadequate even to manage some of today’s proliferation problems, such as Iran’s nuclear program, but possession of civilian nuclear power would shorten the time required for a country to break out of a disarmament agreement and produce a number of nuclear weapons.

This task force will seek to help policymakers understand better the connections between the energy and security debates, and to develop new policy proposals designed to provide confidence that nuclear-energy use does not obstruct possible disarmament initiatives. Task force recommendations will be in the form of a report to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Gas Centrifuge and Nuclear Proliferation, Iran, the West, and the Region, The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD), Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, 11 March 2007.

Making Highly Enriched Uranium, Lecture for Topics in International Relations: Protection Against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WWS-556d), Princeton University, 26 February 2007.

Satellite Imagery, Lecture for Topics in International Relations: Protection Against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WWS-556d), Princeton University, 19 February 2007.

Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Lecture for Topics in International Relations: Protection Against Weapons of Mass Destruction (WWS-556d), Princeton University, 12 February 2007.

Weapon-Grade Plutonium Production Potential in the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, Princeton University, 13 December 2006.